Not to say that I disagree with the notion that factory farming is cruel and unnecessary (I did quite a bit of ranching duties in my childhood, all of which were open-pasture). Rather, there's a point where a given human will consider it "cruel" to inflict pain or death upon another living being, and said point is a very subjective one.
I personally draw that line somewhere between the raising of livestock as food and the continuous torture of said livestock as practiced in many larger livestock facilities; that's because I recognize that humans are naturally omnivorous apex predators, and don't subscribe to the belief that there's something fundamentally different between myself eating a cow and my dog eating a cow. Others may draw that line as "vegetarian, but I'll swat a mosquito that's biting me and I might try eating bugs". Still others might even let that mosquito suck freely. Regardless, the position of said point on the scale between "I don't even kill plants; like, everything has a soul, brah" and "HAHAHAHAHA MURDER EVERYTHING! ENDLESS SLAUGHTER! BURN THE EARTH! BURN THE SKIES! SATAN/GARGAMEL 2016! HAHAHAHAHAHAA!" is very subjective, as are the notions of "good" and "evil" that tend to influence such a placement.
Not to say that I disagree with the notion that factory farming is cruel and unnecessary (I did quite a bit of ranching duties in my childhood, all of which were open-pasture). Rather, there's a point where a given human will consider it "cruel" to inflict pain or death upon another living being, and said point is a very subjective one.
I personally draw that line somewhere between the raising of livestock as food and the continuous torture of said livestock as practiced in many larger livestock facilities; that's because I recognize that humans are naturally omnivorous apex predators, and don't subscribe to the belief that there's something fundamentally different between myself eating a cow and my dog eating a cow. Others may draw that line as "vegetarian, but I'll swat a mosquito that's biting me and I might try eating bugs". Still others might even let that mosquito suck freely. Regardless, the position of said point on the scale between "I don't even kill plants; like, everything has a soul, brah" and "HAHAHAHAHA MURDER EVERYTHING! ENDLESS SLAUGHTER! BURN THE EARTH! BURN THE SKIES! SATAN/GARGAMEL 2016! HAHAHAHAHAHAA!" is very subjective, as are the notions of "good" and "evil" that tend to influence such a placement.